Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 May 9

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May 9

Using wiki software to manage market research data - good idea or bad idea?

I'm looking for a platform solution to the problem of organizing and storing market research data from a wide variety of sources. I've looked into professional solutions and they typically focus on a narrow subset of activities, such as survey execution, campaign feedback tracking, and so on. I need something far more general - someplace to hold competitor product specs, trade association monthly report statistics, multimedia like product photos, and so on.

Right now using a wiki platform seems like the most appealing solution - all my marketing specialists can work on the dataset together, it would handle our disparate data types, editing history is protected, and so on. Before I commit to this direction, however, I'd like to ask others familiar with wiki (and perhaps even similar problems) to see if I'm overlooking anything. I've tried to find information online regarding wikis used for market information management but haven't come up with anything useful. Thank you. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:46, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like you need a database, not a wiki. --Nricardo (talk) 02:48, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The most obvious problems I am seeing is that anyone can edit, no one owns a wikipedia article, and none of your data is proprietary any longer since Google loves indexing all that is wikipedia very quickly. Yes we do have protected history but that would start to become tedious after awhile, and although you may have your own userspace and sandbox I am not certain you would get a lot of technical help (there is a desk for that specifically with people much much more educated in wiki code than I) since the bandwidth/data requirements for having a dynamic, multi user and growing database on your personal or sandbox area would not be encouraged since if all wikipedia users started doing that we may very well have a virtual crash, DoS attacks are based on the same rough logic.

That said I know wikia(with an a at the end) prides itself on being a little more personal but then you have the same problems with others being able to edit and even there I am not sure if you have a type of "ownership" on that page. There are programs out there like Dropbox and Google Docs which are password protected/view protected and designed to be a business answer to running databases and sharing documents. If I am incorrect on these views I'd love to hear why however ;-). ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 06:15, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

You are incorrect -- it is possible to use the MediaWiki software to set up a wiki that is totally independent of Wikipedia. Many people have done it. However, I agree with Nricardo that a database is probably a better choice. The problem with a wiki is that it gives you very little organization, so any sort of systematic data analysis becomes a lot of work. Looie496 (talk) 06:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

To borrow Johnny Carson I did not know that, thanks Looie496, does that also allow a user to control editing access and even viewing access? Not that the OP is questioning that but I would imagine most businesses would require that. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 06:49, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I certainly concur with Looie. "MediaWiki Is Not Wikipedia". Wikipedia is just one (very prominent) user of MediaWiki - and Wikipedia sharply limits the usefulness of MediaWiki by screwing down the security side of things as tightly as possible in order to allow literally anyone to edit it.

I run a large mediawiki site on a public server for my family business - but lock down the privilages such that only signed-in users can read or edit pages and only admins can create user accounts. While that setup might not be utterly bullet-proof because my data travels over the public internet - you could solve that problem by hosting the software and the database on a PC within your own building. Without the constraints that Wikipedia has to impose, you can have Wiki pages with JavaScript controls - you can allow everyone to have admin privilages, you can allow almost any kind of file to be stored as a "File:" - you can dispense with all manner of limitations that Wikipedia has to rely upon. I store CAD files on my MediaWiki and have buttons on each page to send the file to my laser cutter and have it manufacture it.

The advantages for a business are many:

• You have full version control of absolutely everything.
• You can track which person changed which word in which document.
• You can easily see what work each of your employees did on which days.
• You can set email notifications when a particular set of documents are changed.
• The software is free and opensourced - and because it's used by the 5th most popular website in the world, it's reliable and well-maintained - and is likely to be so for the forseeable future without nasty corporations trying to screw you over!
• Because you're using a browser to view it, you can run the same exact tools on Windows, Linux, Mac, Cellphones and tablets...and it runs just fine on very old computers, so you don't need to buy the sexxiest new computers for everyone when the next version of the software comes out.
• If you permit it - you can allow access from people's homes and from customer sites.
• Many people are familiar with editing Wikipedia - and it's obviously easy enough for the layperson to learn - so your employees should have no problem adapting to it.
• Because all of your files are stored in one place, backups are easy.
• The separate "Talk:" pages are great places for employees in different departments to communicate about subjects in which they have a shared interest.
• There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of MediaWiki extensions - many of which tie in nicely with other business software. Almost certainly there are some that you'll find invaluable.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Nice rundown there SteveBaker, for as versed as I am on Wikipedia I am really curious to try out Mediawiki now. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 14:22, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Note that not only can you set up MediaWiki sites that are not Wikipedia, you can also use other software to set up a wide variety of Wikis. See Comparison of wiki software. Twiki and its derivatives are sometimes claimed to be more suitable for mapping business processes, but there are advantages (and disadvantages) to most solutions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

yeah, depends on what/who. if you have structured data, i.e. it looks databasish then a database is good; if it's unstructured and variable like a paragraph of different types of info for everything, then a wiki... if your folks are not very techish probably a wiki is easier for them, if you want to have a techy type be in charge of it and other folks be user-types then a database is more it... common sense type stuff. me, i do everything in excel. hammer, looks like nail, etc. Gzuckier (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Steve caught my drift and I thank him for his comprehensive reply. I didn't expect people to think I meant literally editing within Wikipedia. That's silly. Of course it would be a standalone install on a company intranet with VPN access as needed. I hadn't thought of the legacy support aspect, that's a great selling point to upper management. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

New euro notes

Now that the new 5 euro note is out in the public, will the other euro notes get redesigned too? JIP | Talk 14:15, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Given (at least) that it is the nature of governments to waste time and money on things that don’t matter, yes, absolutely. ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:18, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Waste? Explains why there is always a need for the Rent Is Too Damn High Party lol. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 14:28, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Redesigning banknotes periodically isn't a waste of money, insofar as it allows governments the ability to stay ahead of counterfeiters. The U.S. government, which for decades (1920s-1990s) didn't change much of anything about their banknotes is now deliberately redesigning them (except the $1 bill) every decade or so, for this very reason. --Jayron32 16:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know of a timetable for the redesign then? JIP | Talk 14:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

10 seconds with Google finds this: http://www.ecb.int/euro/banknotes/europa/html/index.en.html

As to the reason? Most countries withdraw and redesign their banknotes periodically. I remember my first visit to the USA, and being baffled by all the ads on public transport reassuring people that the new $20 bill was just as legal as the old one, and that the old ones would never be withdrawn. The US is really unusual in its insistence that its paper money never expires. As the ECB page explains, one of the main reasons for a new series of notes is the implementation of new security features. The different design tells the users which security features to expect when they look for forgeries. Additionally, new issues may add new accessibility features where these have not existed previously. US notes remain impossible for blind people to tell apart, and until the latest series, could not be distinguished solely by colour either. UK and Australian notes (to take the two I'm most familiar with) are graded by size and colour for easy identification. You can't pass someone a pile of £5 notes with a £50 on top and make it look like a pile of fifties. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:39, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

It's really not that expensive to do the redesign - and I believe I read somewhere (sorry, couldn't find the reference) that coin and banknote collectors take enough of the money permanently out of circulation to pay for the redesign cost. SteveBaker (talk) 16:27, 10 May 2013 (UTC)